Yes, a year has passed since we last feted our favorite pastime—PC gaming. In some ways it feels like it’s been much longer, so rich was the quantity and quality of titles that PC gamers had to choose from. That abundance served to make our job as awarders especially challenging. Nevertheless, we holed up in an office as we do every year and collectively reviewed the highlights and lowlights of the last year in PC gaming. Now it’s time for you to kick back and enjoy the spectacle that is Maximum PC’s 2011 Gaming Awards!

What matters most when you game? I imagine we each have a different answer, and that answer may change with time. After many years of playing military shooters, I finally realized this month that I’ve had enough. I’ll certainly go on steering around my little guy as he bobs behind an iron site in a brownish-grayish world, but I won’t miss the genre if it vanishes.

To say that Batman: Arkham City is the best licensed game of all time is like saying Oreos are the best chocolate-and-cream sandwich cookies; sure, it's praise, but it's meaningless praise given the competition. A more impressive feat is that outside of the comics and graphic novels, Batman: Arkham City is the single best representation of the Batman property ever created.

You're already ahead of the game by the very fact you chose to sleep in this morning rather than rush the local stores and go elbow-to-elbow with ruthless shoppers who wouldn't think twice about trampling over you if the opportunity arose. It's much easier to slum it at home and shop online in your PJs, and sometimes, the Black Friday deals are just as sweet, like the ones in EA's Origin store.

If you're suffering performance issues with Batman: Arkham City on the PC, don't worry, you're not alone. Andy Cataldo, U.S. Community Manger for Turbine Inc. (acquired by publisher Warner Brothers in 2010), said that "after researching the matter, we found that running the game with DX11 is causing the performance issues." The solution? Don't run it in DX11 mode, silly.

Samsung is offering a deal that helps take the sting out of investing in a solid state drive. For a limited time, buyers of Samsung's new 830 SSD series in 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB capacities will receive download codes for the full versions of Batman: Arkham City and Norton Ghost. There's also a 64GB model available that comes with Norton Ghost, but not the Batman game.

Batman: Arkham City is the game PC gamers deserve, but not the one they need right now. Or at least, that's what Warner would have you believe, seeing as the new date puts everybody's favorite batty, bat-themed billionaire on PC a month after his arrival on consoles. On the upside, however, our version's swooping in decked out in all the latest crimefighting tech, including DX11 support, 3D, and... er, Games For Windows Live. Well, they can't all be winners. Unfortunately, it also doesn't come with one of those magical deus ex machina time travel devices from Harry Potter – which is the only conceivable way you'll be able to blast, slash, and ka-biff your way through all of November's major releases before Rocksteady releases Batman: Arkham Galaxy. Hell, we'll probably need one for Skyrim alone.